Collected Archive of Shoemaker Reports
The Shoemaker Report is Rav Hoshea’s weekly Torah publication. Its focus is on internalizing and living Torah from the heart, not only from the head. The divrei Torah often take the parashah of the week as their point of entry and address central questions of inner avodah — including teshuvah, prayer (tefillah), emunah, bitachon, and related areas of spiritual and personal refinement.
The writing assumes seriousness from the reader and speaks from within Torah life, with meaning emerging organically from honest analysis of our holy Torah and the words of Chazal, rather than from short-lived inspiration or simplified conclusions.
There are moments when history seems to hold its breath. Redemption unfolds in two stages – leaving and entering. The space between them is unstable, but not broken. That instability is called ra‘ad: the tremor that appears when inner truth begins to rule outer life.
In Parashat Bo, the mitzvah of tefillin reveals a deep map of inner avodah. Drawing on Likutei Moharan 15, this essay explores how fallen fear (yirah) is elevated through self-judgment and humility into da’at, transforming fear into awe and opening the path to the hidden light of the Torah.
At the end of Parashat Shemot, B’nei Yisrael believe Moshe’s promise of redemption. But after Pharaoh intensifies the bondage, they can no longer hear it. Not rebellion, but kotzer ruach – a collapse of human capacity under crushing pain. The Torah records this without blame, and redemption moves forward anyway.
Galut does not begin with hatred or cruelty. It begins when memory dies. This report traces Egypt’s exile not to oppression, but to a deliberate forgetting of Yosef – showing how societies collapse when contribution no longer creates obligation, and consumption replaces covenant.
A profound reading of Parashat Vayechi exploring why Ya'akov buried Rachel on the road and Leah in Ma'arat ha-Machpelah. This report traces how Ya'akov places truth, love, and destiny at the end of life – revealing exile, permanence, and where each truth belongs.
